


Time Cannot Erase (You)

by imagined_haven



Series: (Not Gonna Write You) A Love Song [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Not Beta-Read: We Die Like Men, Not so much a happy ending as a hopeful one, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 07:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_haven/pseuds/imagined_haven
Summary: "I know you love him, but he wouldn't want you to waste away like this."Riku waits on a beach for Sora and reflects on how it all came to this.





	Time Cannot Erase (You)

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Okay, Haven, it's been... what, seven years since we wrote, like... anything at all.
> 
> Me to me: Yes...
> 
> Me: And this is how you want to break the trend. With a fandom you've never written for before.
> 
> Me to me: ...
> 
> Me: With a concept you've never tried.
> 
> Me to me: ...I JUST HAVE FEELINGS, OKAY.
> 
> Me: Ugh. Fine. You know what, I'm not gonna even try to stop this.
> 
> \---------
> 
> Please, enjoy what little sanity I have left vanishing before your very eyes. This is a songfic. With no song lyrics anywhere but the title, because that's the rule I set for myself. Or one of them, anyway, full list of rules in the SERIES PAGE WTF SELF.
> 
>  
> 
> _Corresponding song: My Immortal by Evanescence_

The sun sank lower over the water, coloring everything it touched in reds and golds as waves gently lapped at the shore. The leaves swayed and rustled with a gentle breeze. There was a heaviness to the air that had nothing to do with the humidity that came hand in hand with living on an island, as if time itself had stood still to capture one beautiful moment.  
  
Riku, sitting under a tree that had once supported the weight of himself and his friends, could not be less appreciative of that moment.  
  
It was all too eerily similar to the evening he had disappeared, twenty-seven days ago. _But who was counting?_ he asked himself with a soft snort.  
  
The others had long since dispersed, having their own problems to sort out. Even Kairi had left after staying a week longer than the rest, gone to Radiant Garden in some misguided attempt to carve out a future by revisiting her long-forgotten past that he couldn’t even pretend to understand. Riku was alone in his vigil. That suited him fine, though. _Let them move on_ , he thought as he shifted slightly, loosely curling an arm around his knees. Let them be happy with their victory, with regaining their lives and their friends and their loved ones. He would remain. Someone had to be there, if— no, _when_.  
  
Riku sighed. It was getting harder to believe that Sora _would_ come back, despite what he had told the others. The connection between them, once brightly burning, had long since grown cold, and Riku could no longer sense his heart or his dreams as he once could. At the same time, though, Sora was _everywhere_ , weighing down the air around him, binding him to this small island while everyone else carried on with their lives.  
  
As the sun finally disappeared below the horizon, dusky purples replacing the golden hues of the sky, he tipped his head back against the tree’s trunk and closed his eyes. Another sunset gone, without a trace.  
  
It was silly, he knew, to assume that Sora would come back at a sunset just because it had been sunset when he had returned Kairi to the islands before disappearing once again, seemingly for good. It was just as ridiculous to assume that Sora would reappear on the islands when he had a whole universe full of worlds he could return to, worlds that he had saved, worlds he had yet to explore. And yet Riku could not bear the thought of leaving. It seemed too much like yet another betrayal of someone who had done nothing but forgive him for what felt like an endless line of transgressions.  
  
At the same time, he wasn’t sure his heart could take another sunset without Sora somehow miraculously returning from wherever the _hell_ it was he had disappeared to where Riku couldn’t sense him. Even when he had been deep in the Dark World, barely able to feel his _own_ light at times, he had felt Sora’s, however faintly. It was terrifying to think that there was somewhere he could be that would block that light, but it was even worse to think that it had been extinguished somehow.  
  
Riku blinked as his phone chimed. A glance at the screen let him know it was a message from Kairi. Probably another attempt to get him to leave the island, like she had when she first left.  
  
_“We can’t stay here forever,” she'd said, biting her lip. “He wouldn’t want us to, either. And this is something I need to do if I’m going to move forward. Maybe—”_  
  
_“Maybe what, Kairi? Maybe it’ll be good for me, too?”_  
  
_“Honestly, yes. Riku, if he knew you weren’t sleeping like you should be, if he knew you barely eat and getting you to leave this beach at all is like pulling teeth—”_  
  
_“It’s not over yet,” Riku had interjected._  
  
_“I’m not saying it is! I’m just saying he wouldn’t want you to put your life on hold while he works his way back to us.”_  
  
_“About that. Did he tell you anything about why he isn’t here already?”_  
  
_Kairi had looked away. “Not much. I don’t know where he is. What about you, you always seemed to just…_ know _how he was doing.”_  
  
_“Not anymore. I… I can’t feel him now, wherever he is. It’s like he’s…” Riku had paused, unable to say it._  
  
_“Tell me about that. I feel like I missed out on so much while I was training. Something about that test? I think Sora said something about spirits, and dreams, and you…”_  
  
_Riku had sighed. “He explained Dream Eaters, right?”_  
  
_Kairi had nodded. “And something about your connection, but he was really vague about it. I don’t think he understood entirely.”_  
  
_“He wouldn’t. I don’t think it worked both ways. But… when we were sent to the Sleeping Worlds, I knew something was wrong somehow. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I became his Dream Eater. I lived in his dreams, and I protected him there. Now that we’ve been back, it’s not like it was. I used to sense everything that was going on with him. As we went on more missions, as I spent more time in the Dark World, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling as much, but I still sensed_ him _. A vague sense of direction, maybe, like if I took a ship and flew that way I’d meet him eventually. Now… nothing.”_  
  
_She'd cringed. “I’m sorry, Riku.”_  
  
_“I’m not. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, if it meant getting him back. But you’re dodging the question. He told you something, even if it wasn’t where he was going.”_  
  
_“He… he said there was a price he had to pay. And he wanted me to tell you not to worry. As if you’ve ever listened to me about that, Mr. Not Moving Off This Spot Until Sora Comes Back.” Her teasing, usually lighthearted, had seemed off somehow._  
  
_“I don’t know how you can leave,” he'd replied. “I saw, you know. That last night we were all here.”_  
  
_“Oh, that. Riku, we’re not… you know it’s not like that, right?”_  
  
_“I don’t think_ anyone _knew that, Kairi. I mean, come on, the princess of heart and the champion of light? Talk about meant to be.”_  
  
_Kairi had laughed, the first real laugh he’d heard since that night. “Maybe once upon a time. We talked about it a little. But… we’re not meant to be like that. We’re friends, and we’ll always love each other, and that’s what the paopu was really about for us. But we’re not_ in _love. And you… the two of you didn’t need a legendary fruit to connect your hearts, did you? They’ve been connected for a long time.”_  
  
Riku hadn’t replied then, and he still hadn’t given her a direct answer. But Kairi being Kairi, she’d figured it out anyway, and every few days she’d send a new message, ranging from pictures of silly things she saw to last night’s _I know you love him, but he wouldn’t want you to waste away like this_. He hadn’t responded to a single one yet, but it didn’t seem to stop her from trying.  
  
A cool breeze swept in from the water, and he shivered, arms tightening around himself. It was completely dark now, the beach on which they’d all once played now more closely resembling the beach he’d honestly thought he and Sora were going to spend an eternity roaming. Before Kairi had brought them both back into the light again, before he’d even fully grasped just how much the boy beside him really meant to him, before…  
  
_No use dwelling on that now_ , he thought. All he could do now was keep Sora’s memory alive in his heart, and hope it was enough to bring him back.  
  
He stood to find a better place to rest for a while, and suddenly everything shifted.  
  
_The pavement was wet beneath him, hard and cold. Everything hurt, as if he had slammed into it from a great height. He groaned softly, struggling to open his eyes._  
  
_As he finally succeeded, one gloved hand landed in a puddle. Finding nothing familiar in the reflection it provided, he forced himself to his knees, and then to his feet._  
  
_Tall buildings surrounded him, full of glowing lights despite the evident lateness of the hour. There wasn’t a single landmark he recognized, though, so he forced himself onward, across a street and toward… he wasn’t sure what. All the while, everything ached with a fierceness that was impossible to ignore, as if something inside him had broken when he hit the pavement. He couldn’t place what it could possibly be, though, there was no one specific location that hurt particularly worse than any other._  
  
_He glanced at a nearby window, then froze when he saw his reflection. He was…_  
  
_Sora._  
  
Riku grabbed at whatever this was, whatever trace of their connection had finally resurfaced, and _pulled_ with all his might, unable to help a smile even as he landed from his own fall. He would find him, whatever the cost, and once he’d found him he would never let Sora hear the end of it for leaving them. For leaving _him._ Maybe they could even…  
  
Riku shook his head. He had to find Sora first. He could dream about a future with Sora later, once that future was less uncertain. For now, he paused, one hand over his own heart. Where…  
  
_There_.  
  
The hand over his heart curled into a fist, and Riku set off toward where he just knew Sora was waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for making it this far!
> 
> This is currently conceptualized to be a series. By which I mean I have a list of titles, corresponding songs, and very brief notes saved to my phone that may or may not ever see the light of day. More on that in the series page.


End file.
